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| Tuesday, January 22, 2002 |
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See-thru infrastructure 
| | Is it possible that this is the top Linux distribution in the world? |
| | Here's one story about it. And another. Note the use of the word "transparency" in the first item: |
| | China is eager to protect local software makers before its entry into the World Trade Organization, expected by the end of this year. Local developers have been daunted by competition from global companies such as Microsoft, whose Windows operating systems are installed on about 95 percent of computers in China. |
| | "China wants to control its destiny in terms of the software platform that is used in the country," said Matei Mihalca, head of Internet research at Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific. With the Linux operating system, "there is full transparency in terms of the underlying code." |
| | Is "transparent" a better — and less loaded — adjective than "open?" |
| | I think it's reasonable to want the stuff of infrastructure to be transparent. Note that I'm not talking about the stuff that depends on infrastructure, such as the entire commercial software business upwards of operating systems. I'm talking about infrastructure. Are OSes as infrastructural as pipes & protocols? |
| | In his open letter about Trustworthy Computing (thanks, Paul, for that), Bill Gates says "Trustworthy Computing is computing that is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony." Interesting. Those other services are infrastructural. Significantly, their workings are transparent. There is no secret to how any of them work. (Even digital telephony.) As de facto infrastructure, Windows is anomalous in its lack of transparency. |
| | By choosing to develop OS X on a transparent base — Darwin, which is BSD on a Mach kernel — Apple respected the essentially infrastructural nature of operating systems, and the need for transparency at that level. I was talking with an Apple guy who works on OS X last night, and he was going on about the synergy between the company and outside Darwin hackers who shared an interest in improving Darwin as base-level infrastructure. Also about what Apple is giving back to the world in its work on FireWire, for example. |
| | I think, in the long run, Microsoft would be wise to do the same — at least if it wants to maintain Windows' infrastructural role. |
Ring of the Lords
Grousing
| | Internet Explorer on Windows keeps histories for weeks, no? On Mac, it's for days. I hate that. |
| | Here's what I want in a browser, in addition to base functionality: 1) Form filling; 2) History (better deep than shallow); 3) Easily edited bookmarks. 4) Selectively purge-able cookies. There are other things I'd like, but they aren't on any browser. All four are on IE. One or more are missing on Netscape, Mozilla, iCab, Opera and OmniWeb. So I stick with IE most of the time. I hate that, too. |
| | By the way, credit where due: IE was first with all four items. |
| | [Later: I'm told Mozilla 0.9.7 has all four. My problem in the past with both Netscape and Mozilla was that they crash. So does IE, of course, but not so often. Anyway, I'm downloading the latest Moz build, so we'll see.] |
| | [Still later: Mozilla crashed twice, both times as I was setting preferences. And while setting Forms prefs (before the crash), it wouldn't activate typing in an entry space unless I clicked elsewhere first. It would have been nice if it allowed me to turn off font smoothing, too. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play wasn't bad.] |
My name is Doc and I'm a deadline user
| | The Big Deadline passed yesterday and I'm still on it. |
Far out
| | Tom just showed me this, which is now a permanent bookmark. |
| | Speaking of Tom, here's today's quote: |
| | The entire legal, financial and social logic of the American corporation is a farrago of lies built on vestigial DNA from some Jurassic period of market capitalism when investors actually mattered. And I've only read the early portions of the book. |
| | Harapha did OK, until Sampson broke loose from his tether. I would say that the tether for many strong writers of blogs is their commercial interest, from which they can in no way break free. |
| | But let's not forget the tethers of friendship and manners, for which it's often quite easy to trade those commercial straps. |
Blue death special
| | Looks like we'll see some terminal bargains at Kmart soon. |
discuss
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